And When This Fails?
by Scapekid
Summary: And when this fails, what is left? Post-John Quixote. False princesses without tactics.


Title: And When This Fails?  
  
Author: Scapekid  
  
Feedback: Awaited with baited breath at scapekid@email.com  
  
Disclaimer: Y'all know I don't own 'em.  
  
Rating: PG  
  
Spoilers: Through John Quixote.  
  
Summary: And when this fails, what is left? Post-John Quixote.  
  
  
  
And he had left her sitting in the corridor.  
  
Alone, in the middle of a war without an enemy.  
  
Outward battles; attack, defend, regroup, assault, batter, bleed, die, or live.  
  
Pulse pistol, solid, real, unnegotiable fact, cool beneath her fingers, knuckles gripped hard, head fell to her knees, a sigh shook her body, and then it shook some more, for no reason.  
  
And what then? When these things fail?  
  
New tactics; negotiate, surrender, flee. Intangible things. Bleeding inside instead of out.  
  
And when they fail?  
  
When words and arms and blood and death and the attempt to attempt fail, what then? What is left?  
  
Love?  
  
Unnegotiable fact, that makes you bleed inside and die.  
  
"You know, you really shouldn't be sitting there like that," there was a grinning gray face. Head at an angle. "Wrinkles says she's making... Well, I don't know *what* she says she's making, but it smells tinked, and I think it's spreading. You wanna keep your sense of smell? Don't stay here," an infectious laugh that did not infect her echoed along the corridor. There was a pause. "Frell, Aeryn, are you all right?"  
  
"Yes, I'm fine, Chiana," she stood, not unshakily, not without the wall.  
  
Chiana cocked her head, gazing up at Aeryn, and then tipped it again, taking her in from a new angle. "Easy answer," she said.  
  
"I'm fine," Aeryn repeated. She smiled. People bought smiles.  
  
Another head tip, and, "No," definite head shake, with a self-satisfied smile, proud of herself for discovering some great fundamental truth. "You're not."  
  
"I..." at a loss for words, she blinked. She opened her mouth, and then closed it. She frowned, and then at last she said, with irritation "Well then what do you want me to say?"  
  
Chiana shrugged. "I don't know. How about what's wrong?"  
  
"I think I've really frelled things up this time, all right?" she snapped. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"  
  
"Give him time."  
  
"I don't think it works that way anymore."  
  
"Well you've gotta give him something, Aeryn."  
  
"How about a baby?" Sarcastic. Bitter.  
  
"Well, I was going to suggest a really *great* frell, but yeah, that could work."  
  
There was a silence. And the enemies were closing in.  
  
Fear, and confusion, uncertainty, secrecy, pain. Spilled secrets, and spilled blood, and fluid levels that had spilled seven cycles ago, and every time they had bubbled over since.  
  
And she had tried to march them away, under threat of a pulse pistol, and pen them in some long forgotten corner of her mind. It had seemed a simple enough thing to do. Besides. He would always be there for her. To collapse against. To listen. To give her strength, and hold her up. A support as solid as a military unit, a bulkhead, or love.  
  
And love was solid, and real, wasn't it?  
  
She had thought he would always be there.  
  
She -  
  
"So," Chiana said, breaking the silence, glancing nervously at Aeryn's blank stare. Acknowledging, with the slightest tilt of her head as the other woman refocused, and gazed back at her. "Did you find out if the narl's his yet?"  
  
Narl? Oh. Child. Baby.  
  
"No."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"I meant to, but --" excuses. "I will. Next commerce planet."  
  
Chiana shrugged. Saying, with her motions, your business.  
  
"What," Aeryn began, then took a breath, and started again. "What happened?"  
  
"What? In the game? Stark's frelled up ideas about us, I think. It was like...a quest, yeah a quest. You know, kiss the princess, win the game."  
  
"And I was the princess?" cautiously asked, dreading the answer.  
  
"Well..." awkward now. "You were *a* princess."  
  
"But not the right one?"  
  
"Well, it was Stark's world, so, um, Zhaan was the princess. At least I think that's what Crichton said."  
  
"Zhaan was the princess," she said, thoughtfully.  
  
"Um...yeah. But you know, you shouldn't take it personally --"  
  
She was surrounded. A false princess surrounded by false enemies that beat down on her without mercy until she could not see the sky, or her pistol, or the truth.  
  
Little, cruel fears, broken from the fragile cages she had worked so hard to construct. The kind that would pummel a being into the ground, from the inside out, and squat on top of them, so that they might never get up again.  
  
Here, at last then, was the enemy she could not fight, or see or flee from.  
  
All strategies had failed, all tactics exhausted. She had nothing left in her arsenal.  
  
After everything, it finally came down to this:  
  
There was nothing more to be done.  
  
This was her situation, and it was completely and utterly beyond her control.  
  
I am afraid, she realised. Utterly terrified. And he is angry with me, and hurt, and confused. And these are things I cannot change. These are facts far cooler and more solid than my pulse pistol.  
  
There was a strange tranquility, once she had accepted that. Because she loved him, and that was something else she could not change. And maybe that would be enough.  
  
"It's okay, Chiana," she said to the Nebari with a soft shake of her head. "It's all right."  
  
Chiana frowned. "Are you sure, I mean a moment ago you seemed real --"  
  
"I'm fine," she said in a voice that was quiet, and calm. "I just...think I finally understand something."  
  
Untenable situation.  
  
Options, as learned by rote, cycles ago. Death or negotiation, death or surrender, death or retreat or death.  
  
Or acceptance, patience, compassion, hope. New options.  
  
------------------------------------------------------------  
  
Aeryn walked to his door, and found it open. He was sitting on his bunk, elbows on his knees, chin in his palms. His notebook lay spreadeagled on the floor, pinned by his gaze, assaulted, warred with. One wall was covered with equations, in defence. Old tactics. Infiltration, espionage, understand the one you fight against. She knocked, and he looked up.  
  
"It was a bad trade," she said.  
  
"What was?" he asked. Polite. Cold.  
  
"My life."  
  
"Your life?" he frowned. "I'm not sure I quite...understand what it is you're trying to say. Of course that's nothing new. Your life for what? For Scorpy's asylum?"  
  
"For Zhaan," she answered simply.  
  
"Zhaan," he murmured softly, and turned back to the floor and his notebook.  
  
"I'm the false princess," she said, sighed. "I know that. I understand that now. I think, maybe, all I ever did was distract you from whatever it is you're supposed to be out there doing," she waved her hand, all encompassing to the defensive line of equations on his wall. Calling card to something she would never understand, or inflitrate, or batter down. A protective wall he had pulled himself more tightly than she could ever wrap herself around him. "Still, I think I was an appreciated distraction, for a time."  
  
"Yeah, well, I missed that show."  
  
"I know. And I'm sorry. I also love you."  
  
He frowned, not expecting that, but did not turn towards her.  
  
"I still love you," she said carefully. "Even if you're not sure how you feel about me anymore. It's all right. And I can wait."  
  
She lingered for a moment before leaving. "Goodnight, John."  
  
When she had gone, he pulled off his boots, lay down on his bunk, and turned towards the wall.  
  
And Aeryn, always, thought, new tactic.  
  
A piece of advice, garnered long ago, ignored until now, dusted off, and filed under 'things that are true.'  
  
Zhaan, in her apothecary, long ago, and Aeryn, reaching for an offered bottle.  
  
"I'm sure Crichton will appreciate it," she smiled.  
  
Aeryn froze. "I didn't ask fo this to please Crichton," she blurted, wondering, on some level, why she had asked for it, how scented hair could help her achieve anything productive.  
  
"Of course not, Aeryn," Zhaan nodded. "Forgive me."  
  
Aeryn stood, wavering. Unsure what to say next, but unwilling to leave. She had wanted to ask for help, she recalled, for advice. But she was then, as she had always been, too proud.  
  
And so, as she was leaving, it was Zhaan who spoke and said something that would take well over a cycle to crystalize in her mind as an essential truth.  
  
"You cannot prevent change, Aeryn. Especially change within yourself. Accept what the Goddess has in store for you, and paths you were blind to will appear before you."  
  
Later, leaving Crichton's quarters, a broken man and a false princess, she decided that she had heard something rare, and precious.  
  
That there is peace, and wisdom in accepting the things that cannot be changed. A clarity that is unattainable without that peace, and other paths and choices that remain hidden without that clarity.  
  
When there is nothing else to be done, there is nothing that can be done except trust, have faith, and have hope.  
  
And she had hope. Beyond that, she had love. And, she believed, that would be enough.  
  
FIN 


End file.
